8:00 PM Late games recap: Saints stay perfect by beating Panthers 30-20; Vince Young stays perfect as starter as Titans top 49ers 34-27; Chargers hand Giants their 4th loss in a row in a 21-20 comeback win; and the Lions turn a 17-0 1st quarter lead into a 32-20 loss to the Seahawks.
7:42 PM And it wouldn't be an NFL weekend without Chad Ochocinco trying to liven things up on the field: this time the Bengals receiver tries to bribe an official with a whole dollar! Will this stunt cost Chad more than a dollar in fines from Roger Goodell?
7:20 PM How did Joey Porter back up all the jawing he did this week about the Patriots? By finishing Sunday's game with no tackles, no sacks, no passes defensed, no forced fumbles or recoveries, and no comments to reporters afterwards.
No disrespect to Michael Phelps or anything, but when it came to jaw-dropping performances in the 2008 Summer Olympics, the real show-stopper was Jamaica’s Usain Bolt. He so effortlessly dominated the 100 meter dash that not only did he break a world record, he did it while celebrating over the last 15 meters or so. He set the record at 9.69, which is wild enough, but considering his chest-thumping while he crossed the finish line, it was only natural to wonder just how low he can push the record.
Well, plenty lower, as it turns out. At the World Championships in Berlin today, Bolt chopped over a tenth of a second off his record, recording a 9.58 and - of course - winning easily. Video is after the break.
The Clippers’ selection of Blake Griffin with the first pick in the NBA Draft last night was a forgone conclusion, so most of the draft drama was centered around Spanish point guard sensation Ricky Rubio. Over the past couple of weeks, Rubio became one of the most fascinating prospects in draft history — he doesn’t want to play in a small market or a cold city, his agent didn’t let him work out against other humans (which led to the strange one-on-none workout in Sacramento), he still has a huge buyout in his European contract, and nobody can really agree about how good he really is (he could be the next Steve Nash or the next Dan Dickau, and neither scenario would be surprising).
In other words, Ricky seems to be rejecting Minneapolis as his future home. Any threat to not come to the NBA isn’t really financial leverage, since his contract is slotted based on his position in the draft. But he could be pulling this stunt to try and force a trade to a city that’s more to his liking, such as New York. He might also be wondering (like a lot of other people) why the Wolves took another point guard (Johnny Flynn) with the #6 pick. Here’s what Mr. Rubio told MARCA (via FANHOUSE):
“We are going to speak with the [staff] of Minnesota and see what’s happening, because, in some hours, we may be in Minnesota or in another place.”
He’s either expressing confusion over the Wolves’ intentions of keeping his son, or he’s basically telling them they better trade because there’s no way Ricky’s coming to play there.
After being drafted, ESPN’s Mark Jones asked Ricky to compare his game to that of a current NBA player. To which he simply replied: “I’m Ricky Rubio” (to the amusement of the MSG crowd). Scroll to the 3:20 mark of this video:
Surely I’m not the only person who thought of this when I saw the interview:
After Minnesota picked Flynn, it looked like Stephen Curry might fall to the Knicks, and it was no secret that he wanted to call MSG his home. But the Warriors didn’t get the memo and picked him, sending the Knicks fans on hand into depressed hysterics. It was only fitting that the boos rained down on Jordan Hill, who had no chance to win over the New York crowd in such a short period of time. At least he’s probably better than Renaldo Balkman.
The other strange development of the night was Brandon Jennings‘ last-minute decision to not attend the draft at the advice of his agent, who seemed uneasy about letting his client end up like Rashard Lewis, who famously slid way down the draft board while TV cameras watched his every emotion. Well, as it turns out, Jennings went 10th to the Bucks, then decided to show up a few picks later to get his photo op with David Stern. Now, if Jennings turns out anything like Lewis, he wouldn’t have cared when he was drafted.
HOOPSHYPE has a good recap of the draft up, and Kings fans are going to need to steer clear of hairdryers and bathtubs after reading that they’ve got the next Larry Hughes on their hands. The suit of the night, without a doubt, belonged to James Harden:
(Mustard suit + bowtie = smooth)
There were some other things going on in the sports world last night, including the resolution to one of the stupidest athlete spats in recent memory. With the Yankees heading to Queens for a weekend series with the Mets, the tensions between Francisco Rodriguez and Brian Bruney once again became back page news. But the NY DAILY NEWS reports that it was all settled last week, when Bruney sent a clubhouse attendant over the Mets clubhouse to apologize to K-Rod on his behalf. I was accused of some anti-Yankee bias in my original post about this matter, but really, c’mon, sending an attendant to apologize for you? How lame is that? I would’ve loved to see that exchange at K-Rod’s locker.
A lot of major league pitchers struggle, and a lot are sent to the minors to work through their troubles. But few actually go to their team and ask to be sent down, like the Pirates’ Ian Snell has done. Snell is 2-8 this year with a 5.36 ERA and awful 1.624 WHIP. He had actually been throwing better as of late, but said he thought it was best for the team to be sent down because he was bringing too much negativity to the team. I can’t decide if this is an alarming lack of confidence and perseverance on Snell’s part or a refreshing selfless decision done in the interest of helping his team and his own career. Regardless, Snell has actually been slightly better this year than last, when he had a 5.42 ERA and even more god-awful 1.765 WHIP, and he threw a full slate of 31 starts. Here’s what Snell told the PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE’s Dejan Kovacevic:
“I don’t want to point fingers and make excuses. I just made a better decision for myself, my career and my life.” I asked what he needs to do: “Nothing. You guys don’t understand it unless you played baseball. You don’t understand it, and the people at home don’t understand it. I’m just going down there, get my thoughts together and do well.”
I think he just needs a hug, not a stint in AAA.
Before we get to today’s links, I feel like taking a few minutes to watch the “Smooth Criminal” video again. There’s no doubt that Michael Jackson was a weird dude, and possibly a perv on such a level that he doesn’t deserve our grief. But is it so bad to spend a day remembering why we loved the guy? All that other stuff will come back around soon enough.
Now let’s get on with those links:
• Ever wonder who that lady is who gives the draft picks their hat before they walk over to meet David Stern? Wonder no more.
• Darko Milicic has been freed by the Grizzlies…and is going to the Knicks in a swap for Quentin Richardson. It’s crazy to think that Darko’s still just 24 years old, and Mike D’Antoni thinks he can resurrect Darko’s career (well, his career was never really alive).
• First, the Dolphins sold their stadium naming rights to Jimmy Buffett, and now Gloria Estefan has bought a piece of the team. I’m told there are currently no plans to start calling the team the “Sound Machine.”
• Vijay Singhattempted to bail accused swindler Allen Stanford out of jail, but was told he couldn’t because he isn’t an American, according to CNBC’s Darren Rovell. This is like the first time I’ve ever heard about Vijay being a really generous guy, and it’s to someone who probably stole a bunch of money from him.
• According to this AFP story, “Gay clocks wind-aided 9.75″ at the US Track and Field Championships. Miss California is unimpressed.
• Frank Thomassays he’s “close” to retiring, which will be news to the one person in the universe who doesn’t already think that Frank Thomas is retired. That person being Frank Thomas, of course.
• A man has now been arrested in connection with Karen Sypher’s plan to extort cash from Rick Pitino. Why was Lester Goetzinger so willing to help out in this scheme? Were sexual favors involved or something? Oh, actually, they were.
• Wimbledon’s in full swing, and a rising star you might want to keep an eye on (or both your eyes on, really) is Caroline Wozniacki out of Denmark. She’s the #9 seed and has advanced to the third round. Here she is enjoying some time off the court:
That’s certainly a disappointing way to close out the Beijing Olympics. During preliminary races this morning (or is it yesterday afternoon? or tomorrow night?) both men’s and women’s 400M relay teams from Team America were disqualified after a good old fashioned case of oopsies.
For the men, it was the combination of Tyson Gay and Darvis Patton who couldn’t make the handoff, causing the men’s team to miss the relay finals for the first time since 1988. For the women, Lauryn Williams and Torii Edwards get the dunce caps, keeping the women’s team out of the finals for the first time since 1948.
Saturday’s men’s 100-meter final was expected to be one of the marquee event of the Beijing Games, with a fast and incredibly close finish expected between Usain Bolt and Usafa Powell of Jamaica and American Tyson Gay. Instead, Bolt turned it into a rout, setting a world record of 9.69 while winning by two-tenths of a second, the largest margin of victory in the event in the last 40 years of the Olympics.
And oh yeah, he apparently did it with one of his shoes untied.
Via AWFUL ANNOUNCING, we are alerted to today’s wonderful accidental headline of the day, the morning after sprinter Tyson Gay runs a wind-aided 9.86 in the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic Trials.
Apparently, a news service called ONE NEWS NOW run by the highly conservative American Family Association has a little filter that changes words automatically. Thus, as OUT SPORTS discovered: Tyson Gay becomes Tyson Homosexual.Read more…
